If you live in northern Indiana and got your corn planted in the last days of April or early May, you may just be in one of the garden spots of the Midwest. Reports also say corn looks very good in Mercer County, Ohio, and surrounding areas. In other areas of central Indiana, central Illinois, much of Iowa and into southern Minnesota, crops are late and soybean planting was interrupted several times by rain.
Some people in southwestern Indiana – or in the Greene County area at least – were also plagued by showers not everyone got. One farmer decided to switch to milo; another took prevented planting.
None of this compares to southeast Indiana, however. The wettest part appears to be a triangle with Ripley County in the center. Corn went in late, some soybeans likely aren't even planted yet. They will for all practical purposes become like double-crop soybeans after wheat.
One farmer said he took prevented planting on the last 100 acres of corn and had 500 acres of soybeans left to plant just a few days ago.
The soils in that part of the state are wet, many of them being gray, clay to clay-loam soils. Internal drainage is slow. Efforts have been made to tile some fields, and farmers pay more attention to surface drainage there than farmers do in most of the rest of Indiana.
Still, this season is running far behind schedule on planting, even by the standards of what's normal for planting date for southeast Indiana. In 2012, they had more moisture than many areas in the spring, but crops went out on time. However, slugs took their toll last year in some no-till fields before soils dried out, particularly in soybeans. Some slug reports came in this year, but as it warms up and the crop is bigger, slug problems usually disappear.